Portal: Beginning
by Steffii
Summary: What happened to Chell before the beginning of Portal? What was her origins? Had she met GLaDOS before? When Chell meets her father for "Bring Your Daughter to Work" day, she is in for a dark surprise. Warning: Some violence/blood.
1. Prologue

A/N: I tried my best to write a prologue for Portal. I love this game! It's a mind game but so much fun! And I got inspired by Portal 2. Well, I tried to be as accurate as possible. I am sorry of something is amiss.

Portal: Prologue

_Aperture science facility_

It was a beautiful day for 'Bring Your Daughter To Work Day'. It was a fair where the workers finally get to show them around and participate in activities. Young girls around their early teens were excited, while the older ones were only interested in what their parents did for a job. Their fathers/mothers enjoyed it at least. They got time off work, of course. Their boss enjoyed it even more, hoping perhaps to recruit one of the girls to work at the facility one day.

Everyone appeared to enjoy themselves all except for one particular girl. Her name was Chell. She only came to the place because she hoped that _maybe_ her father would pay attention to her but instead arrived at a facility with giggly girls. Her mother insisted she go because her father was looking forward to the day. Chell knew he was just going to break another promise as usual. It all started when her father received that promotion two years ago. His boss never let him off on vacation or to spend with his daughter. His time was devoted to work only.

She rarely saw him at home and lived with the constant broken promises. Why did she want to live through another one?

Chell sighed, trying not to look too miserable. He was trying at least. But she hadn't seen him around yet.

The presentation went on for at least another twenty minutes. Chell's eyes were busy glaring at the clock, trying to drown out the presenter's voice. Maybe her father had an important assignment to do and couldn't make it. She wanted to stop worrying but… the promise he made. Was that not important to him at all? Did anything matter to him anymore? Or only care for this facility?

"And that ladies, is the history of the Aperture science facility," said the man, some employee in the facility. He started coughing suddenly, and pounded his chest. "Sorry, I think something went down the wrong pipe."

Everyone in the classroom left and moved on to the next. Chell didn't want to leave. She wanted to find her father. She decided to ask the man who presented, but he shrugged, not having a single clue where he might be. _I knew I should not have come here,_she thought, sadly as she exited the room.

"Chell! There you are!" she heard a familiar voice. She looked up to find her father smiling at her.

She nearly jumped, surprised to see her father suddenly there out of nowhere. "Where were _you_?" she asked in an annoyed tone.

Her father shrugged it off like he didn't know that his own daughter only wanted to spend time with him. "You know, work."

She wanted to say that had been his excuse for over two years, but her mouth didn't open to say them. "What now?"

"Well, I get to show my daughter around," her father said, while smiling. "I promised you, didn't I?

Yes he did. So far, things were starting to look for the better but Chell still found the facility creepy in more ways than one. For one, she had no idea what the place was even for unless her father told her, which was highly unlikely. He told her he had a surprise for her. Chell started to shiver, as they entered deep into the place. Something felt wrong. The whole way the facility functioned seemed futuristic like. Almost like it was built for an experiment.

Her father even acted different than usual. He smiled at her and told her how amazing she was. Chell wished she did not feel scared. Her conscience ordered her to turn around because there would be no turning back once she entered the laboratory. _Just stay calm. It's only a building. Nothing more._

Her father showed her something called _Portals_. He said it was secret, and certain people could test it out. Chell wasn't surprised but why portals? Wasn't that kind of over the top for a science facility?

"This," he said. Behind the glass of his laboratory, a male came out of an automatic door. "Is the obstacle course. The man over there is holding what we call portal gun."

The male was in some sort of strange room. There was a cube at the end of the room and then a button in the middle. He shot what looked like a blue portal underneath the cube, and then a yellow portal above the button. The cube instantly fell on the button and opened the door to continue. Chell had not seen anything like it before.

"So that's the test subject?" Chell asked, curiously.

He nodded. "Yes."

"What for?"

"We want to see how far this Portal experiment can go. Some of the experiments are successful while others aren't so much." Chell waited patiently for him to speak more. "But others failed." She wondered where he was going with this. Her father's eyes were somewhat maddening. "You need to meet the A.I. here."

Artificial Intelligence.

Her father pressed a button on the control board. "GlaDOs. Say hello."

A mono-tone robotic female voice piped up. "New guest, sir?" the A.I asked politely.

"This is my daughter, GlaDOs," he replied, bringing Chell forth.

"Oh, this is her," GlaDOs said as if she were expecting her. "Nice to meet you, Chell."

Chell raised a black-haired eyebrow. "You know my name?"

"I told her a lot about you," her father said.

"Did you try any cake?" the A.I wondered.

_Weird question_. Chell shook her head. "Um, no," she said, "why would I want to eat imaginary cake? It's only to lure you into a trap."

"Smart daughter you have, sir."

Even though Chell could not see it, she sensed a smirk behind the A.I's words. Her father wanted her to see the rest of the place. So far, the facility surpassed a lot of theories. The whole portal thing? People thought it was a mere myth, but if it worked out the portals could potentially be used for good. Her father explained he wanted to try sending people to the moon, safely of course. The whole tour felt out of place. She felt he was not talking about everything truthfully. She knew that. Even if he was showing her around, it was slightly off. Chell couldn't explain why, and it was not a bad feeling. Her father's intentions… what were they?

That A.I following them around seemed to know everything too. A little too much. Did the test subjects volunteer or were they forced to do it?

The whole science facility seemed too secretive to allow someone to see a lot. So he trusted her, was that bad? Her teachers did not consider her normal as far as intelligence went. She was definitely smarter than most kids her age but that did not mean she got friends because of it. She ignored their stupid snide remarks which pissed them off even more and gave her a nickname. _The silent one._It didn't matter. Her intelligence got her out of messy situations. Chell still tried to decide whether or not she was in a trap, or her father just loved her and wanted her to see what he did for his job.

"Chell, we don't spend enough time together," her father began, once they returned to his office. "As a father I have definitely failed." She almost wanted to agree with him. Her father looked serious though so she decided to let him speak. "I wish I could explain everything… except I can't."

Chell shrugged. She gave up a long time ago when he did not show up for the eighth time to her science fair. "It's okay," was all she could come up with. Her father raised an eyebrow in surprise since she put up a fuss coming to this place. "You're a busy man…"

Her father refused to hear such an answer. "I'm sick. We need to spend more time." Sick? Chell did not remember her father mentioning any illness. Her mother never said a word about it unless she did not want Chell to know.

"When did you become sick?"

"Beats me," he replied, rather quickly.

_Not an answer. _Her father knew better than to not give her the answer if he had one. Chell would find out eventually.

"Poisoning," he said. "From testing."

"You should get to the hospital-"

"Can't. This is too important."

GlaDOs interrupted them before the conversation turned into an argument. "Sir, do you want me to execute the plan?"

Chell raised an eyebrow. "What plan?"

Her father nodded. He grabbed something from his desk and hid it in the back. As he came closer to her, he stabbed her in the arm with a needle. "Chell, I apologize in advance for this."

She collapsed onto the cold hard floor, unable to feel anything.


	2. Lab rat

A|N: I did research on Portal 1/2 items so I didn't get them wrong.

/Dream

_She looked down at the large lava below her feet. It would consume her unless she jumped over it somehow but the other side was too far. Did it matter? Chell knew she had to jump unless she wanted to die. Chell took a couple steps back, and then ran. When she was at the edge, she jumped higher than she expected. She could not believe she was able to do something like that. _

_ Chell smiled. She was actually going to make it!_

_ But her hands did not quite make the other side. She missed._

_ She realized she was falling…_

_ Falling… _

_ Falling…_

_ Down to the lava pit. _

Two days later/Aperture Facility/Laboratory room

Chell woke up to a light flaring in her eyes. Her eyesight was quite blurry for some odd reason. It took her a while but she realized she was stuck on a bed. Not any ordinary bed as there was a glass hovering over it. She banged her hands against the glass, begging for someone to get her out. She even called her father… but he didn't come for her.

What happened, she thought, what happened to me?

"_Chell, I apologize in advance for this…" _her father had said then. She watched him helpless put a needle into her arm. She had a feeling he was acting a bit strangely when she arrived at the facility. She never dreamt her own father would make her pass out.

The glass lifted and the door to the room she was in opened up. Her father walked in, making her want to scream at him but she waited for him to say something first. He didn't. He gave her sympathetic eyes however; nothing came out of his mouth. She was strapped to the bed so she was unable to move.

"Why did you do this?" she shouted at him, furiously.

Her father did not answer while he sat down at the desk across the room. A voice suddenly came onto the intercom. "Test subject#1 is fully awake," the robotic voice said. "Her vital signs appear completely normal."

"Thank you, GLaDOS," her father replied. "Testing will begin shortly. Get the test chambers ready."

"Yes, sir."

Chell was confused. Test chambers? He also said something about her being a test subject. There had been one who had tested before her. She did not understand why she was the first test subject. She didn't want to be one. She wanted to spend time with her father like all the other average girls did. None of them were knocked out conscious. _So much for being normal, _she thought.

"What do you mean?" Chell asked her father. He ignored her again and wrote in his notepad. She only saw the words "Test subject #1 Score" and then a chart underneath it. He was going to rate her. _His own daughter_, she thought, curling her fists into a ball.

Her father coughed. "All right," he said, "let her out."

"Of course, sir," GLaDOS responded. The straps loosened around her body. Chell slowly, trying to get out the stiffness in her hands and legs, got out of the bed. She was furious at her father. He could have had anyone to test.

"I just need you to run a couple of tests for me," he said, and coughed again.

"Tests," Chell repeated.

He nodded and pointed to the room, much different from the one she saw before. It had gross green-brown liquid around it with strange oval looking bots that stood on short pointy legs with a red eye in the middle. Her father explained the "bots" were actually turrets that shot anything unless they were removed somehow.

"Be daddy's good little girl," her father said, "And do this for me."

She wanted to ask him more questions. Perhaps, if she completed the tests, he would inform her of why he kidnapped her.

Before going on to the tests, her father fed her breakfast and explained she had been out for a couple days and needed the strength to complete the tests. Chell was really hungry, eating whatever she was given. She was given an orange suit to put on and also, 'Advanced Knee Replacement' which went around the back of her legs for support. Her father told her they were used to lessen the impact of high falls. The thought scared her a bit but she did not want to disappoint her father. He also told her GLaDOS, on top of it all, would be her guide throughout the test chambers.

As she finally became ready for the first test chamber, she wondered if she would make it out alive. Chell thought since she was the first test subject, she might make a good way to know if someone would die from something within the test chamber. She never thought her father was capable of that until she walked into the elevator.

The elevator door opened up to a large spaced out room. Some tiles on the walls were white and some were black. In the middle of the gross water, there was a strange gun being held up by a pedestal on a pillar while it turned around and shot a blue portal. There was also a red button on the same pillar which she knew, would open a door up. Next to it, a moving platform went back and forth to each side of the room. Chell knew instantly what the objective was: To get the Portal gun.

She noticed an orange portal was next her, changing as the blue portal went to different walls. _I have to wait for the right one to get to that Portal gun, _she thought.

The Portal gun shot a blue portal on the wall where the platform had moved to. Quickly, Chell went through the orange portal and got on the platform. The platform slowly took her to the gun. Chell didn't stop there. She took the gun immediately and pressed the button. A door opened up top. She shot the blue portal before the door closed on the white tiles inside the room. An orange portal, out of nowhere, was shot at the other side where the platform was.

Chell made it at last, to the end of the first test chamber but knew it would not be her last.

"_Well done," _GLaDOS said. There was something about her voice that got under Chell's skin. It sounded fake, but with sarcasm. _"If your father had not opened that other portal you would have been stuck on that pillar. Oh well… then you'd have no choice but to jump into the sewage. That would be quite a shame, wouldn't it?"_

Chell ignored her. She wanted nothing to do with the strange A.I. She would talk to her father about GLaDOS later.

The next test was easier than the last. It included a large button, an orange portal and a cube. Anyone could have done it. Chell waited for the orange portal to change to the correct spot, as there was another portal device hidden behind glass. She seized the opportunity and grabbed the second portal device.

Once again, much to her annoyance, GLaDOS' voice came on. _"Good work. I am surprised you have made it this far."_

The third test was a bit different than the rest. It was the same one that she saw with the green-brown sewage, much like the first test only it was shaped differently. There were turrets on the other side of the chamber, facing her way. As soon as she stepped inside of it, they began shooting at her. Chell rushed behind a large pillar which was luckily nearby. She rubbed her slightly burnt legs. The damn turrets had lasers installed in them. Worse than bullets. She had a feeling she would have to get rid of them, as her father told her before. She just needed to figure a way how. There was a long narrow barrier-like item across the width of the room. One end of it faced the white wall, where she would be able to put a portal on the other side of it. She figured if she could somehow knock the turrets with it, she would be able to get through.

She casted an orange portal on the white wall of the barrier, and put a blue on the top wall where the turrets were. The turrets fell over and began spazzing out. _"No hard feelings,"_ one of them said as the red light turned off. Since when did turrets speak? Then again, it was the Aperture facility… and she knew that would not be the end of the oddities to come.

She still needed to get to the other side of the chamber except there was that disgusting water again. It smelled awful. Worse than sewage. Were they trying to kill people with that awful smell? No matter. She decided to figure out a way around it. Above her was a dropper of some sort and a red button on a pedestal in front of her. Chell couldn't figure out how to get passed it. Perhaps jump while the dropper dropped whatever was in it? The space between ends was not that far apart.

Chell pressed the button and quickly jumped to catch it but she slipped and fell, her arms grasping the ledge.

"I never thought someone would be stupid enough to try something like that… until you came along," GLaDOS said.

_Ignore her, _she thought.

She drew a conclusion jumping while trying to catch the cube would not work. She had to stay where she was and catch it on her own. She again pressed the button, and waited for the cube to come out. When it fell, she caught it, and threw it to the other side of the room. She jumped again, and that time did not fall.

She placed the cube on the red button. A door opened, meaning she had completed the third test.

"Perfect!" her father said over COM. "I knew you'd be able to do it! That cube you picked it is called a 'Weighted' cube. There are many different types of cubes you will come across later in the other test chambers.

"Am I done?" Chell asked.

GLaDOS chuckled. "Done? No, you're far from done."

"What she means to say, Chell, is that, we want you to do a couple more."

Chell wanted to throw the portal gun on the ground and destroy it. She almost did but caught herself.

"You're doing amazing, honey," he said. "You should be happy. You're the first to complete it."

"What about that man I saw earlier?"

"Oh him…" GLaDOS said. "He was Test Subject #000. He failed at the test you just completed. You would have both shared the same fate if you had fallen into the Deadly goo."

_And you'd love that, wouldn't you, GLaDOS? _Chell wondered.

Her father let her have a break for a while. He decided to chat with her about a couple of things. "First off, I don't want you thinking I am sacrificing you," he said.

Chell crossed her arms. "That is a little hard to believe considering you knocked me out and used me without my permission. You know that this is against the law, don't you?"

He sighed. "I'm sorry," he said.

She refused to accept his apologies. For so long he apologized to her and she always accepted them. She was sick of it. Her mother was getting sick of it as well. "No, don't apologize," Chell snapped.

"Listen to me, my experimenting was not going well. My boss… was threatening to fire me and asked me to find any one I thought would be good," he said. "Someone who is good at thinking on their feet."

"So you chose me," she said, coldly.

"I'm sorry! I had no choice… I was freaking out. I'm on my last legs here."

"And what does Mom think of this?"

"She doesn't know."

Chell shook her head. She was deeply disappointed in him. "What lie did you tell her?"

"Told her you were going to stay with me here for a week. Then we would go find something for us to do."

She rolled her eyes. "I can't believe you… That is the lamest excuse I have ever heard."

"Sorry," her father whispered.

Chell shook her head at him again. "I told you," she said harshly, "to stop apologizing."


End file.
